Climate change poses big challenge to fisheries: FAO official

The livelihoods of people who depend on fisheries are being threatened by climate change, according to a senior official from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Árni Mathiesen, the Assistant Director-General of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Department at FAO, is attending a major global meeting on oceans which opened in The Hague, in the Netherlands on Tuesday.

He said shifts in climate will bring extensive changes.

"Climate change is a big challenge for basically everything that we do, but we regard to fisheries it has the habitat change included in it which can and lead to fish stocks migrating from the usual areas of abundance and the predictions are that they will be moving from the lower latitudes to higher latitudes and more to the north than to the south. So this in itself can lead to changes which can be difficult for the communities to reconcile their livelihoods with." (28")

The Global Oceans Action Summit for Food Security and Blue Growth is discussing the challenges of feeding a growing global population while maintaining the health of oceans.

The four-day meeting is being attended by senior government officials as well as representatives of the fishing industry, coastal communities, scientists and civil society.